Lots of love and respect for you guys, and I think what you’re saying is relevant and probably backed by science… Another thing just to avoid being Mr Unpopular is that I admire all of your accomplishments. I get the sentiment, a lot of VCs are truly douchbags…
Hard not to think though… I used to use Basecamp, but now I don’t. I feel like it just became extra dated, and couldn’t keep up with the times where simplicity became a virtue. The grass kept getting greener on the other side. Maybe that wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t take that fifth day off. Maybe you’re thinking smarter not harder, but maybe it’s not smart enough? I use Trello now because I think it’s much better and decoupled some concerns that are now pushed into Slack. (I don’t know anybody that works for Trello and have no affiliation). So if Trello is crushing you guys, then according to your logic, they are only working 3 days a week (you guys are working 4, and companies who chill more, do better). Or they are smarter? I seriously doubt that. You guys are pretty smart.
Maybe you guys will prove right in the long run, I don’t categorically doubt it. You guys are super smart. But I think there is a huge thing missing here about “workaholism”. A lot of these people honestly love their work. Some people love it so much that they don’t really feel right if they are away from it. It could very well be called addiction. My guess is there are a lot of people who would be a lot worse off if they weren’t “workaholics” though. There are a lot of worse-aholics, like alcoholics or depressed-aholics or people who are dead…
Not everybody has the taste for driving fancy cars, working on their internet personalities to funnel readers into purchases from their blogs, chilling out in Cancun, only to write back home about how great life is, pretending like they didn’t work hard to get there. Not everybody has a taste for that.
I know this is your narrative style, but sometimes it comes off to me as an excuse for why you guys aren’t crushing it more. Rails was a revolution, I still love it to this day but there is this voice in the back of my head that knows it’s gonna get crushed too. Yes, you’re crushing it more than me, I’m happy to admit that, I’m truly a nobody compared to you guys. I just say this as a humble reader of this blog that I’m happy to read. Thanks!
